It's all too familiar. Not too much has changed, the sounds are the same and there is complete and utter chaos but it's to be expected, it is an emergency room after all. I've been in this position so many times I've lost count. The blue scrubs at least two sizes too small, the inevitable schizophrenic who is pacing and muttering nothing, the violent patient who has been sedated with eyes that seem to hum. I am curled up in my chair shifting often in an attempt to find a position that is comfortable, a position in which I can sleep. I find it ironic that there is an Eating Disorders Unit upstairs yet they are not quite equipped to deal with us. No matter how I position myself my bones poke the chair and I know I will wake up with bruises that I don't remember getting. I am shivering and it is freezing. It's a different kind of cold, I am chilled to the bone and nothing I do can change that. I hear someone call "Ms.Chandler," and, instinctively, I raise my head only it is not me they want, it is my mother. For the first time in my life I am not the crazy one, I am not the one in need of a head examination. No one is going to pick and prod my brain, not tonight. Instead of a pair of scrubs two sizes too big there is a pair of scrubs two sizes too small and they are not being held up by a bony hand. I take this as my cue to smoke a cigarette and relish in the fact that I can actually LEAVE the emergency room to smoke a cigarette and I do not need anyone to supervise me while I use the bathroom. Part of me is thrilled at the thought of my mother locked on a unit counting down the hours until visitors are allowed or the seconds until she is allowed out of her room after a unsuccessful attempt at a nights sleep. A patient is wheeled down the hallway restrained to the chair, she is yelling and spitting and horror floods my mothers face. "Don't worry," I say "if you are hospitalized you won't be with her she will be put on the psychotic ward or in a state hospital." My mother sighs in relief.
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